Over the last few days I've been out and about, going to Wheaton on Thursday and the Museum of Science and Industry on the south side of Chicago on Friday. We stopped in the museum gift shop just a little bit before closing time, and I simply intended to bum around and look at stuff while my friend did the same, waiting until he was ready to leave. A book suddenly caught my eye, and when I picked it up I randomly turned to a page about a roadside haunting. And after I finished that story I read another story about a myth in a graveyard. The book is entitled Weird Illinois, a compilation of myths, legends and random oddities that either occur or have occurred in the state. Although I have been reading articles about UFOs and harmless apparitions more recently, what still catches my eye are some of the stories of the ghosts that don't "rest in peace," per se. Many of these stories and accounts are scary as can be, but for some of them I kind of felt for the ghosts, as if they needed help for something but will never receive it because we as a society of those who are still living have been taught and trained to be afraid and run away from these *ahem* creatures.
I'm doing my best not to think too much of it--it seems to have worked; I haven't had any nightmares about the accounts since I bought the book--but reading them has made me a little less fearful of death. The fact that we have ghosts helps the belief that we don't cease existing when we die. True, there is a separation between the two entities (one of the dead and one of the living) and it is rather difficult to communicate between persons from the different dimensions, but knowing that I won't just stop thinking or feeling things when I croak has helped me to peacefully move closer each day. Of course, while I've been reading this, I'm trying to figure out where God has a hand in it; I'm not sure how He does it, whatever it is, I just know that He does it.
Aside from a heck of a lot of driving, death was a pretty common theme this year. Aside from the celebrity deaths in all sectors, ranging from politics (Gerald R. Ford) to sports (Lamar Hunt, Kirby Puckett, Cory Lidle, et al.) to music (James Brown and Gyorgy Ligeti) to science (Steve Irwin), there have been a few that have affected the people around me, to where I have had to pray for them as they go through their hard times. Aside from my friend Allen and pet bird Phillip, one of my friends at Olaf lost his uncle in mid-summer and a couple others lost a parent or sibling. But one lesson I've carried from it is that these people are no longer in pain, and, as long as no one's screwed around with their graves, are presumably resting peacefully. And it makes me happy to know that they are doing alright, albeit jealous sometimes.
New Year's for me has always been a time of cleaning the slate and starting over. I never want to forget the people who have been in my life in the past, but at the same time cleaning the slate helps me move on. I'm not sure what my resolutions will be (if I make any). Sometimes they just happen, and by that I probably mean I just give the pen and paper and have God write them down. [Something like that.] Hopefully for 2007 I'll be able to start anew again.